


Squared

by Krimsonkitsu



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-03 11:49:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1743668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krimsonkitsu/pseuds/Krimsonkitsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A terrible promise was made that night, and now Jack and Ianto learn just what it will take to put aside the past. Set in Season 1, post Cyberwoman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Set Up

It was damp, cold in a way that he couldn't describe. 

He felt the air penetrate his lungs, filling them and burning like salt water. He felt the grit lacing his lashes, and he opened his eyes slowly. Everything was so fuzzy. 

He was inside. But where? Upstairs? No, that didn't feel right, the air tasted too earthy and the ground, though certainly uncomfortable, felt far too solid underneath him. A cellar then? Certainly more likely. But what cellar? He felt the chunks of rocks digging into his spine, and the icy finger of what felt like a spade pressed against the thin material of his pants leg. 

Where in the hell was he? He tried to shift his leg away from the offending spade and it was only then that the pain took front and center. Ianto cried out, his body attempting to curl in on itself. His leg was stuck and he couldn't make out just what he was stuck in. He tried to pull the appendage free and the building groaned right along with him in response. He stopped immediately, hearing the walls settle precariously around him. He was trapped, seemingly hardwired directly into the heart of the building. 

Ianto pressed a clumsy hand to his earpiece. "Tosh?" His voice was choked, almost beyond recognition. "Toshiko?" The silence that answered him was almost more painful than the ache in his leg. He fell back with a frustrated sigh and closed his eyes. Think! How did he get there? Was he on an assignment? If so then he hadn't arrived here, wherever here was, alone. But who was he with? Tosh? Maybe Gwen? The image of Gwen in a formal gown, chewing out Jack, seemed to pop into his head. Something about having one date alone with her boyfriend. 

No, definitely not Gwen then. He blanched slightly, just so long as it wasn't— 

"Ianto?" 

—Jack. 

Damn. He heard the man slowly picking his way through the ruined cellar. Ianto heard the moment his foot slid on a piece of debris and heard the sound of Jack's muffled swearing echo through the destroyed cellar, his stumbling footfalls growing ever closer. Finally Jack climbed over the small wall of broken plaster and fell on top of Ianto with grunt. 

"Well, now it's a party," Ianto heard, rather than saw the smirk in his voice. But more than that, Ianto heard something else in Jack's voice—a breathlessness that he had never heard in his boss before. Jack rolled off of him. 

"You alright?" He asked.

"My leg… I think it's broken," Ianto replied, his voice coming out wrong. And Jack noticed. His hand went to Ianto's head, running through his hair with a motion as tender as a caress. 

"What are you doing?" Ianto protested, his stomach railing against the action. It felt profane so soon after Lisa. 

"You're bleeding," Jack said, his hand pausing on the edge of an injury Ianto hadn't even been aware of yet. 

"Probably a bit concussed then," he said in response, his hand reaching up to feel for himself. His fingers brushed against Jack's and they both pulled away as though scalded. Silence fell between them once more.

"What happened?" Ianto asked, more for something to say, rather than any real hope to get real answers. Jack would have already been chattering about counter measures had he any idea.

"I dunno." Jack's words were accompanied by a heavy thud as he sat back. "But from what I can tell, we are trapped here until Tosh puts the pieces together and comes looking." His voice caught and Ianto twisted to look at him, eyes squinted as he tried to peer through the darkness. 

"Jack? What's wrong with you?" Ianto's voice died in his throat as his eyes finally snapped into focus. Jack's hands were pressed around a piece of pipe which protruded from his lower abdomen. Jack shifted slightly, as though he felt Ianto's gaze on him. The silence between them stretched on in the darkness. Ianto was beginning to wonder if Jack had passed out from blood loss when he finally spoke again. 

"Ianto?" 

"Yes?" 

"Can you reach your gun?"

~~~xXx~~~

Author's note: And there you have it. In my mind, Ianto did his 180 way too fast. You don't go from wanting someone's head on a pike to finding kinky new ways to use a stopwatch in the blink of an eye. I hope you enjoy.


	2. A Man of his Word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack asks a favor.

"A gun?"

"Yes."

There was a pause.

"My gun?"

"Yes."

Another pause.

"You want my gun?"

"No."

"No?"

"No," Jack paused for a second. "I want you to shoot me with it."

Ianto didn't reply, wasn't sure he had heard him correctly. "Shoot you," he repeated.

"Yes, shoot me," Jack said. "The sooner I die the sooner I can come back and we can try to get out of here."

Ianto feel silent again, a strange heat digging into his chest. "That's not the only reason, is it?"

"Excuse me?"

They remained, broken men in a broken room, eying each other. Ianto's eyes gleamed in the darkness.

"You're in pain," he said softly. "You're suffering… you're looking for a quicker end."

Jack stiffened. "What are you saying?"

"You've forgotten?" Ianto's voice was harsh. "I promised you, didn't I?"

The threat of the past, shouted in desperation, echoed in the silence.

"So you plan on letting me bleed out slowly," Jack murmured, closing his eyes. "A man of your word… normally I would find that so sexy." He chuckled, then groaned and seemed to curl inward. Ianto waited for the diatribe, the disappointment, the anger that was certainly heading for him.

"If…" Jack paused, panting slightly. "If we do this… you sit back while I 'suffer and die,' would that make us even?"

Ianto frowned. He hadn't expected that answer. "What?"

"If you keep your promise… get your revenge… does that square us?"

Ianto closed his eyes; he could hear it, though Jack was doing his best to hide it. He was definitely suffering. For the first time since Ianto had met him, Jack Harkness was vulnerable. He nodded, shifting slightly and reaching behind himself.

"Yeah, that'd square us," he replied softly, his jaw tightening.

"Good," Jack leaned back, with the resignation of someone waiting for the inevitable.

"Right then," Ianto murmured, bringing his arm back around. There was a soft metallic click, and he saw Jack's eyes snap open. Even in the darkness, he could see the confusion shining in his gaze.

Both were surprised by the shot. Afterwards the silence seemed more oppressive, more claustrophobic than before. Ianto let out a shaky sigh, if only to reassure himself that he was still alive. In the darkness, in the silence, in the stillness of the cellar, it was all to easy to get confused.

With nothing else to do, Ianto lowered his hand, closed his eyes…

...and waited.


	3. The Thoughts of the Invisible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ianto is alone. And in the darkness, still pinned by the remains of the building, certain revelations come to light... but will he survive long enough to confront them?

It had gotten colder.

Ianto frowned, trying to decide just how much time had passed. He had cradled the gun against his chest like a talisman, but it had lost its warmth a long time ago. His back ached, the muscles knotted against the icy touch of the concrete below him. But his leg had gone numb; Ianto knew that was probably a bad thing, but he breathed a sigh of relief anyways. The pulsing pain had been driving him mad.

He looked back at the lifeless form of Jack—in the darkness he could almost believe he saw movement.

He tried not to think. Thinking was dangerous in times like this— and he was with Jack. Jack was especially dangerous—his very presense could twist a normal person's mind into a knot—one that would take days to untangle. Ianto had questions, always had questions, when it came to Jack Harkness. Ianto knew he had plans—some sort of hidden endgame—the others didn't see it; but Ianto knew.

Because it was Ianto who made the arrangements, who took care of the skeletons and tied up the loose ends at the end of the day. And one can't be a fix-it man without accidentally uncovering a secret or two. In Jack's case, he'd learned a great deal of sticky little secrets. But they only made Ianto more confused—there was no pattern to them, no thread that Ianto could follow.

And he was good at following patterns. Those patterns were his secret weapon. He'd learned long ago that true freedom was invisibility. And to be invisible, one must find every person's blind spot, the point in the pattern that they aren't aware of themselves.

He'd uncovered Owen's first. The doctor thought—no doubt still thought—that he had hidden it well. But his personality, his pride, had given himself away. Ianto smiled to himself; Owen had been the easiest to manipulate. All Ianto had to do was appear insignificant and Owen almost completely disregarded him.

Toshiko had been a bit more difficult. Her insecurity had proven difficult to skirt around and her intelligence made her irritatingly observant. She had wired the Hub into an intricate nerve system of cameras and security checks the likes of which Torchwood-London could never have imagined. Perhaps if her web had been in place there…. Ianto swallowed mechanically, but his throat seemed to rub against itself like sandpaper.

Gwen Cooper. Well he hadn't really learned Gwen just yet. But she was still new, still obsessed with her quests and still juggling two very different worlds. She didn't know just what counted as normal in Torchwood yet so Ianto had been able slide by her with relative ease. He supposed that would have changed eventually, but he didn't doubt that he could fade into the background with her as well.

But Jack… as far as Ianto could tell, Jack had no blind spot, and definitely not when it came to him. Ianto got the sense that Jack's eyes were always on him—that he was always aware of Ianto, no matter what he was doing. That alone bothered him. In a lifetime of being invisible, he was suddenly thrown into a constant spotlight. But why?

Ianto closed his eyes, suddenly feeling woozy. He wasn't in any condition to think like this. The build creaked and groaned around him, but otherwise he couldn't hear anything else. Not his breathing and certainly not Jack's. He wanted to hear Jack's.

He really wanted to hear Jack's.


	4. The Folly of Preconception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack crawls back to life within the cocoon of the collapsed basement. But what did he wake to?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New installment. Whee! Hope you all like it, this was my first time writing for Mr. Enigmatic himself, Jack Harkness. Please let me know how it went. And most importantly, I hope you enjoy

~~~~~~~~xXx~~~~~~~

Jack Harkness hated coming back. He'd always imagined that it would be warm somehow, but instead the cold seemed to penetrate every cell of his body. He let out a groan, his hand reaching for the offending object protruding from his abdomen. He really hated this part.

"Hey, Ianto?" He gasped, trying for levity. "You think the dry cleaner has a frequent flyer program? I must have reached the 10,000 mark by now—" He choked back a scream as he pulled out the pipe and the silence was punctuated by his ragged gasps—only by his ragged gasps. "I-Ianto?" He managed again.

But there was no reply. Jack squinted through the darkness, his heart pounding. He never should have brought the boy along. He had just been so quiet… so frighteningly quiet after the incident with his girlfriend. But it more than that, if Jack was to be honest, it was much more than that.

He'd always considered himself a good judge of character. But Ianto somehow managed to overturn every preconception. And to think that he had dismissed the boy as average. But it was the great deception—the incredible act that Ianto had lived for months—that was the one Jack was still trying to figure out. Perhaps if he spent more time with Torchwood's guard dog, he might get some insight into the boy, anything to shed some light onto the subject.

Yeah, that plan worked out well. Jack groaned, painfully crawling the last foot that separated him from the boy. His eyes were finally adjusting to the dark, though his lungs protested violently to the damp. He paused to cough before finally reaching his pinned assistant.

He found Ianto's hand first, splayed out over the debris. The chill in those callused fingers frightened Jack and he cradled it for a moment, pondering that hand. Somehow, he never imagined such a manicured man having such a rough touch—just another preconception. Jack swallowed heavily, afraid to see when he finally looked to Ianto's face.

Funny. After so many decades, Jack had thought that he had prepared himself for the inevitability of death.

"Ianto?"He murmured, kissing the boys palm, heart still pounding, still betraying him.

He wasn't ready for this.


End file.
